How higher-performing schools made it onto the ‘low-achieving’ list

By staff and wire services reports

November 18th, 2011

Several dozen elementary schools with scores higher than the state’s target for academic success have been placed on a list of 1,000 “low-achieving schools.” Being on the list gives parents the right to remove their children and enroll them in higher-performing schools anywhere in the state, EdSource Extra reports. The designation of these schools as “low achieving” is the unintended outcome of the Open Enrollment Act, which was meant to give parents at some of the state’s lowest-performing schools greater choice as to where to enroll their children. Until passage of the law, transferring to schools in another district was exceedingly difficult for most children, achievable only through a hard-to-get inter-district transfer. This law, which went into effect in April 2010, requires districts to send letters to parents notifying them of the right to transfer to a higher-performing school in another district, based on its Academic Performance Index (API)…